Guides

Read before you act

Three written guides to parts of a civil dispute that are easy to get wrong, and costly to get wrong late. Each one shows you where to check it yourself.

General information, not legal advice. This page sets out how the law generally applies. It does not take account of your circumstances, and you should get advice about your own situation before acting on it. The official sources this page is written from are listed on it; where they differ from anything here, they are the authority.

Each guide takes one part of a civil dispute in New South Wales, sets out how it actually works, and points to the legislation or the court’s own page so you can read the source rather than take our word for it.

They are general information rather than advice about your dispute. If you are looking for a type of dispute instead of a topic, start with contract disputes, debt recovery, consumer claims, property disputes, negligence or defamation. How we work sets out what a consultation involves.

If a date may be running against you

Read this one first. A limitation period runs whether or not you have decided what to do about your dispute, and it does not stop while you negotiate.

Limitation periods in New South Wales

For anyone whose dispute is more than a year or two old, or who is not sure when the clock started. It explains the general six-year period in section 14 of the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW), why the date a cause of action accrues can be earlier than the date you found out, and which kinds of claim run on different periods.

Before you start, and where it goes

The first letter and the choice of venue are both decided early, and both affect what a civil dispute costs to run.

What a letter of demand should and should not say

For anyone about to send a first letter, or about to answer one. It sets out the six things that belong in a demand, the lines that create problems later, and why a letter of demand does not stop a limitation period running.

Which court hears your claim

For anyone working out where a dispute belongs. It explains how the Local, District and Supreme Courts divide civil work, what the Small Claims and General Divisions of the Local Court are for, where NCAT fits, and why the Local and District Courts’ own pages are the only place to read their monetary limits.

What these guides are

Each guide describes how one part of the civil system generally works. It is not advice about your dispute and it cannot be, because almost every civil question turns on facts a web page does not know: what your documents say, when the cause of action accrued, what you can prove and whether the other side can pay.

You will not find a fee, a court’s monetary limit, a success rate or a case study in any of them. Monetary limits and filing fees are set by the courts and changed from time to time, so we link to the page that carries the current figure instead of printing one that will quietly go out of date.

Every guide lists the official sources it was written from. Where a source and a guide disagree, the source is right. Shorter pieces on particular questions are published as articles. The first is Three things to check before you start a civil claim; the Before you start category lists it and anything later.

How to check something for yourself

Four places carry the sources these guides are written from. If one of them no longer matches what a guide says, follow the source, and we would be glad to be told so the guide can be corrected.

NSW legislation, for the law itself. The Civil Procedure Act 2005 and the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 govern how civil proceedings run, and the Limitation Act 1969 sets the general time limits.
The court that would hear your matter, for its monetary limit, its forms and its fees. Start at the Local Court's civil jurisdiction page, the District Court's jurisdiction page or the Supreme Court's about page.
NCAT, if your dispute is a consumer, tenancy, strata, home building or retail lease matter. Its consumer claims page states what it can order and the time limits it applies.
Your own documents, for the dates. No general page can tell you when your cause of action accrued or when a deadline falls. That comes from the contract, the invoices and the correspondence in front of you.

The law changes, and so do the numbers

The legislation behind these guides is relatively stable, but it is amended. The Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) is the clearest recent example: the reforms that introduced the serious harm element and the requirement to give a concerns notice before proceedings changed how those claims begin. An article written before them reads exactly like one written after.

Court monetary limits, filing fees and tribunal thresholds are revised from time to time, which is why they are not printed here.

Where a page shows a date it was last updated, treat that date as the limit of what it tells you. If something on it matters to your dispute, check the official sources listed on it rather than relying on the page.

Have these to hand

The guides are much easier to use with your own papers beside you. In civil matters it is usually the dates and the documents that decide what you can still do.

The agreement, quote or invoice the dispute is about
The correspondence between you and the other side
The date the problem arose, and the date you first raised it
Any court or tribunal document you have been served with, and the date you received it
The other party's full legal name, and whether it is a person or a company